Ernst Bacon Project

Guitarist Bradley Colten has just completed the premiere recording of the guitar works by Ernst Bacon. Available for purchase at Amazon and on iTunes, the disc breaks new ground. Bradley’s CD – which consists of nineteen solo pieces, and approximately sixty minutes of music – presents the newly unearthed, complete works for guitar solo by American composer Ernst Bacon.

Ernst Bacon may be considered a Twentieth Century Renaissance man. In addition to composing, Bacon concertized as a pianist, conducted, painted and wrote both poetry and prose.

Manuscript of Marinio

Bacon’s music – like Aaron Copland’s – identified an American sound that captured “the poetry, folk songs, jazz rhythms and geography of America” in the first half of the twentieth century (Ernst Bacon Society website). His considerable output includes works for piano, chamber music, orchestra and the stage.

As a guitar composer, Ernst Bacon is simply unknown, aside from his single published guitar piece, Parting (1968), which is now out of print. However, unbeknownst to almost everyone, Bacon was quietly composing guitar music for three decades. From the 1960s through the 1980s, Bacon wrote nineteen solo guitar works that range in character and style, yet maintain a clearly defined voice. The works offer a variety of forms: from an eighteen-minute set of Americana, folk-inspired works (Four Pieces for Guitar), to compact character pieces (Just Wondering, A Walk in the Hills and Anything), to miniature canons (A Christmas Canon and Anniversary Canon.)

Manuscript of Cambiataria – Co

Bradley is responsible for the recent unearthing of this repertoire and has the full and exclusive backing of the Bacon family for this and other Ernst Bacon related projects. Bradley’s discovery of this repertoire is detailed in his New Music Box article, HERE.